From Murder to Dust

35 - Discovered

I had been with Nightmare's gang for four years and six months now, and I felt great. Papyrus had recently been able to appear at some points to others, which made him ecstatic when he could do it, and I even caught him on camera once, which was a big accomplishment for him. Killer seemed to be doing well with his emotions and also seemed to have great control over them. Horror had been increasing the time he spent with us, which we enjoyed greatly. Error loved being part of our family, and we loved having him with us. Cross and Chara seemed to be forgetting their early days nicely and rarely thought about them - at least they didn't look like they were thinking about them. Nightmare had recently begun writing a book about our adventures, which everybody enjoyed greatly, since he would sometimes read funny parts to us when we walked in on him. Me? I was just being myself; that was the only thing I was really good at.

At the moment, we were sharing stories from our pasts around a makeshift campfire on the roof and laughing our skulls off at the funny parts of each. Chara wasn't too interested in our stories, since we had told them all before; he decided to patrol the house or whatever he wanted to do. There were a variety of stories told - some funny, some sad, and others were just incomprehensibly cryptic. Overall, we were having fun with our stories. Near the end, Killer had given all of us a challenge to make an intriguing story starter in two sentences, which was difficult, to say the least. Nightmare went first.

"Let's see. I think I can do this." Nightmare got an idea. "When I was young, we had a rule, which was to never go near the forest. I wish I had listened to my parents."

"Ooh! Creepy!" Killer clapped. "Horror, you're next!"

"Aight." Horror coughed. "'N the town o' Cliff's Peak, i' was a steep drop ta the bottom. The rock slide didn't care."

"Poor town." Killed frowned, then smiled again. "Dusty!"

"Oh, um, okay." I thought for a minute. "I got used to the dust of my victims a long time ago, but does that make me crazy? Perhaps."

"Dusty, we're all crazy!" Killer laughed in a half insane fashion. "Crossy!"

"O-okay." Cross tapped his jaw. "I-in the start, th-there was ev-everything. Where d-did it go?"

"Mysterious!" Killer wasted no time. "Error!"

"All right." Error already thought of his. "When you can't fight a winning battle, they say you'll lose. I just say they'll call a tie."

"Awesome!" Killer complimented. "My turn! I told them all to trust me. They should have listened."

We all clapped for Killer's story and complimented the others for a while before putting out the fire and heading back inside. Chara rejoined Cross quickly when we entered the house, and the rest of us went about our normal business, consisting of games, fun, and craziness. Killer decided to play 'grab Dust by the wrist and drag him around the house at speeds he can't handle' with me; Killer could run faster than anyone else I had ever met, probably reaching forty miles per hour at certain times, making me question a lot of things, such as physics. Killer never ran anyone else around the house at ridiculous speeds, aside from Cross occasionally, but he never passed twenty miles per hour when Cross joined; Killer seemed to think that this activity was special, and he reserved the honor for me. He really didn't have to do that; I didn't like moving that fast. The others thought it was hilarious when I collapsed from vertigo, but I didn't mind as long as everyone was happy. Killer didn't run for as long as he usually did today, making me wonder why he suddenly stopped. When I got my bearings, I looked out in front of him, and was in shock at what I saw.

Our adversaries - excluding Dream - were in our house.

They hadn't seen us yet, but we had seen them; that gave us the advantage. Killer quickly unsheathed one of his knives and hit a single bell on the line, causing a chain of single rings to permeate the house, in contrast to the usual reverberation of rings. This was a specific signal that we had made after we found Dream in our house and decided to use if anyone else did the same. Anyone who heard the ring was to report directly to the library, which was the most accessible room in the house, since it took up two floors. Our enemies seemed to notice the ringing, but they didn't know what it was - they shouldn't have known, since we had never used the signal before. Killer took charge of the situation, grabbing my wrist and teleporting us to the library, where the others waited.